


Chosen Family and Natural Family: BBC Sherlock and the Queer Reclamation of Biological Kin

by notagarroter (redbuttonhole)



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Family, Gen, Meta, Queer Families, Queer Theory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-17
Updated: 2017-10-17
Packaged: 2019-01-18 17:40:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12392916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redbuttonhole/pseuds/notagarroter
Summary: Another look at Series 4.





	Chosen Family and Natural Family: BBC Sherlock and the Queer Reclamation of Biological Kin

  


Throughout queer history and queer fiction, there is a well-developed motif of the "chosen family".  This concept grew up as an act of resistance against the traditional notion that we should feel closest and most loyal to our biological relatives. Historically, many queer people were disowned, cast out, or otherwise poorly treated by their relations, so understandably enough, they took refuge in non-familial bonds.  Some of these bonds grew strong enough to replace the broken biological ones, and these became the so-called "chosen family". The premise was that the family you choose could be more important to you than the people randomly assigned to you by nature.

In many ways, BBC Sherlock participates in this queer tradition.  As any number of gifsets have demonstrated, Sherlock has surrounded himself with people who care deeply about him, despite having no genetic connection to him: John, Molly, Mrs Hudson, Lestrade, etc.  The show itself seems to canonically cement this point in TFP, when Sherlock insists that John be recognized as part of his "family". 

  


> _MYCROFT: This is family.  
>  SHERLOCK: That’s _ why _he stays._

Chosen family is clearly very important to Sherlock—both the character and the show.  I'd argue, however, that there is a counter-motif woven into the narrative: the idea that the biological family can be queered as well. 

Sherlock's relationship to his biological family has been underlined by the show since the first episode.

  


> _He’s always been so resentful. You can imagine the Christmas dinners._

Though initially presented as a villain, over the course of the series it becomes obvious that Mycroft loves and cares for his little brother.  Significantly, he refuses to be shut out by Sherlock, insisting that he will "always be there for" him, no matter how Sherlock pushes him away.

  


> _I was there for you before. I’ll be there for you again. I’ll always be there for you._

If the traditional, tragic story of queerness is the queer child being cast out of his or her family, BBC Sherlock disrupts that idea by showing a queer (in the sense at least of being odd and unconventional) child who is insistently embraced by his more conventional sibling.  

In Series 3, we are also introduced to Sherlock's parents. Here too, those of us who are students of queer lit and memoir were primed to assume that Sherlock's parents must want nothing to do with him, or would show him love only if he conformed to their expectations.  But when we meet his parents in S3, nothing could be further from the truth. 

   


> _Ring up more often, will you?  She worries._

Though "ordinary" enough themselves (enough for John to remark on it), they clearly adore Sherlock, and we see no evidence that they disapprove of him or want him to change.  Once again, it is *Sherlock* who shoves them out the door and limits contact with them.

So here we have a "queer" child who has cast out his loving, accepting, supportive family, instead of the other way around.  What would it take to get Sherlock to open his mind and his heart to his biological family?

   


Eurus, the missing member of the Holmes family: a child so twisted, so bent, so abject that she could not possibly be loved or accepted.  Maybe here, then, is what Mycroft means when he says, "The man you are today is your memory of Eurus."  Sherlock can't connect with his brother or his parents because he recalls, on some level, that they threw a member of the family out, even though they treated Sherlock well.  Arguably, it may be unconscious loyalty to Eurus (despite her cruelty to him) that causes him to keep his distance from the others.

And in the end, despite confronting traumas old and new, Sherlock re-affirms his queer sensibility by practicing radical acceptance of someone utterly beyond redemption—the ultimate "other". He looks on Eurus, her character and her crimes, with open eyes.  And instead of cursing her, killing her, ignoring her, or shutting her out, he insists on accepting her, getting to know her, showing her care, speaking to her (and listening to her) in her own language.

  


And it is this choice—to acknowledge and accept his own rejected kin—that allows Sherlock to reestablish his other bonds with his brother and their parents. 

In this way, BBC Sherlock reclaims the territory of the biological family in the name of queerness.  Biological families force us into proximity with people we might never have chosen.  With that forced proximity comes an opportunity and a responsibility to care for people who would otherwise be lost, forgotten, exiled from society.  No stranger would choose freely to love a monster like Eurus, so she is dependent on that family bond to have any hope of human connection. Family, especially as dysfunctional a family as the Holmeses, forces us to reckon with the monstrous Other, and to recognize it in ourselves. 

  


> _Whatever she became, whatever she is now, Mycroft ... she remains our daughter._

Eurus is who she is.  She will not be saved or redeemed (as she would in a Christian paradigm), but she can nevertheless be loved and cared for and heard.  And it is this final act of radical compassion that perhaps makes the Holmeses the queerest family of all.  


End file.
